D 619 
.3 
.P5 

L918ba 
^opy 1 



The Kaiserite 
In America 



One Hundred and One 
German Lies 



D 619 
.3 
.P5 

1918ba 
Copy 1 




Published Especially for 

The Commercial Travelers 
of America 

C by 

THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION 

The Secretary of State 
The Secretary of War 
The Secretary of the Navy 
George Creel 



To The Commercial Travelers of Americas 

Here is an opportunity for the Commercial Travelers 
of America to do a great work toward winning the war. 

You are summoned as specifically as if you were en- 
listed in the army or navy to aid the national cause. 

Our troops will meet the enemy abroad. You can 
meet him at home. 

Throughout the land the Kaiser's paid agents and 
unpaid sympathizers are spreading by word of mouth 
rumors, criticisms and lies, that aim to disrupt our 
national unity and to weaken the will of our people in the 
successful prosecution of our task in the great world 
war. Many people aid them in their insidious work 
by repeating these rumors, through a desire to occupy 
the center of the stage in any discussion, or in some 
cases because they are so foolish as to believe that the 
rumors are true. 

You traveling men are summoned to accept the re- 
sponsibility of putting an end, once and for all, to the 
work of these plotters against the nation. In that task 
you are the direct representatives of the Committee on 
Public Information, which was created by President 
Wilson at the very beginning of the war in order that 
there might be some agency ^to^keep the people informed 
about the war, its causes, its progress and the high ideals 
for which we fight. 

It is your immediate definite task to "swat the lie." 
Whenever you hear one of these rumors or criticisms, 
pin the tale-bearer down. Ask him for proof. Don't 
be satisfied with hearsay or rumor. If he admits that 



he has no real basis for his statements, point out to him 
that he is doing his country a great injury by repeating 
German falsehoods. If you can trace any of the rumors 
to a definite source, write to the Committee on Public 
Information, 8 Jackson Place, Washington, f). C, and 
give us the information. 

This is a war work that should stir the patriotism of 
every American traveler. It is your chance to do your 
part. If we are to go forward to a speedy victory we 
must present a united front to the enemy. No one can 
object to honest criticism based upon a knowledge of 
all the facts, but we must not let German propaganda 
hide under that patriotic cloak. 



The Kaiserite in America 

You have met him, Mr. Commercial Traveler. Or 
you have met a man who has just met him — and who 
still carries about in his conversation the peculiar accent 
of German propaganda. The agents of the Imperial 
German Government are busily spreading throughout 
the country all sorts of poisonous lies and disquieting 
rumors and insidious criticisms of the Government and 
its war- work. And in no place have they been busier 
than in the Pullman smoking cars and the hotel lobbies. 

Watch for them, Mr. Commercial Traveler. 

In the past few months, they have circulated stories 
to the effect that the Masonic orders had protested to 
the government against allowing the Ivnights of Co- 
lumbus to build "recreation huts" for Catholic soldiers 
in the camps; that Catholic nuns had been refused 
permission to do Red Cross work unless they wore 
Red Cross uniforms instead of their conventual 
habits; and that the Red Cross officials were discrimin- 
ating against Catholic soldiers by giving them the 
"leavings" of the Society's supplies. These stories 
were easily disproved as soon as they were printed in 
the newspapers, but they had circulated for so long a 
time, unprinted, that their origin could not be clearly 
traced. Only enough was learned to make it certain 
that they had been put in circulation for the obvious 
purpose of stirring up enmity between Catholics and 
Protestants in order to cripple the work of the Red 
Cross and hamper the government. 




In Italy, German agents have weakened the national 
unity by fomenting the old quarrel between the Papacy 
and the civil power. In Russia, they are inciting at- ' 
tacks upon the Jews. In this coimtry, they are in- i 
venting reports of official discriminations against 
Catholics, on the one hand; and, on the other, they are 
spreading such stories as a famous one that the Presi- 
dent's secretary, a CathoHc, had been arrested for 
treason and imprisoned in Fort Leavenworth. The 
citizens who hear these rumors, and inquire about 
them from one another, are innocently aiding an enemy 
who is not seeking to do justice either to Catholics or 
Protestants. He desires only to see them forget their 
loyalty to their country in a sectarian quarrel. He 
wants them to fight one another instead of fighting 
Germany. You can preventorium from'succeeding, Mr. 
Commercial Traveler, if, when you first hear one of 
these seditious slanders, you write at once about it to 
some such government agency as the Committee on 
Pubhc Information in Washington. By so doing, you 
will help the authorities not only to a prompt correction 
of the misreport but perhaps to a speedy arrest of the 
enemy who invented it. 

German Counterfeiting 

Similarly with the tales that have been current about 
interned German prisoners being fed five meals a day 
while the country was being asked to practice a rigid 
food-economy, about Red Cross supplies being sold to 
shopkeepers by dishonest officials of the Society, about 
a disastrous naval engagement in the North Sea in 
which nine American warships were reported sunk, 
about the bad food that was being served to our men in 
the training camps, about the criminal waste of good 
food in those same camps, and so forth endlessly. 

6 



These reports are all falsehoods, either designed to dis- 
courage volunteer Red Cross work and the loyal efforts 
of housekeepers to save food, or calculated to create a 
troublesome distrust of the government. They are 
circumstantial stories, maliciously conceived, with con- 
vincing details of names and places. They are put in 
circulation with all the care of a counterfeiter issuing 
bad money. And their circulation is often due to the 
foolish desire of a citizen to appear to have "inside in- 
formation," to know more than his neighbors, to be a 
cynical, smart fellow whom the administration cannot 
deceive. Watch for the stories in your trips about the 
country, and nail them at sight. In that way, you will 
be doing as good work for your government as the in- 
ventor of the lie is trying to do for his Imperial master 
in Potsdam. 

But it is not only religious differences that the 
enemy's agents are busily encouraging. And they are 
not merely inventing lies that may be denied. As in 
Italy and in Russia, so here also, they are actively in- 
flaming all sorts of class antagonisms, in an attempt to 
divide the nation and impede its war- work. They are 
exasperating class grievances that are as real in America 
as they have been everyivhere. They are supporting 
both sides of factional quarrels in order to promote 
domestic disunity. They are financing any organiza- 
tion that has a class fight with any other. They are 
trying to aggravate the negro problem, the struggle 
between capital and labor, the jealousy of the farmer 
in the West for the businessman of the East, the 
antagonism of politicians and political parties, 
and all the grievances that have been caused by the 
levying of war taxes, fixing food prices, attempting 
to control profiteering, enforcing national service, and 



generally putting the country into the ranks of or- 
ganization for war. 

Not a Rich Man's War 

It is German agents, for instance, who are most 
eager to increase the feeling that this is "a. rich man's 
war." They spread that lie in spite of the fact that the 
rich cannot buy exemptions from conscription in this 
war as they could in our civil war — in spite of the fact 
that no one can hire a substitute to take his place in the 
trenches — in spite of the fact that the only exemptions 
are allowed to poor men with dependents, or to work- 
ingmen in vital industries — in spite of the fact that the 
war taxes fall most heavily on the rich, and the meas- 
ures of price-control are designed to prevent them 
from exploiting the poor, and the excess-profits tax 
deprives them of the fruits of any such exploitation. 

And it is the German agents who are encouraging 
the Western feeling that this is "a business man's war," 
because when the Government called for volunteers to 
help organize the business of the country on a war 
basis, the business men were most free to respond and 
most fitted by experience to fill administrative posi- 
tions. There are innumerable smoking-car rumors 
that some of these men are taking advantage of their 
official knowledge in order to make fortunes for them- 
selves. It would be the miracle of the world if no 
such betrayers of public faith were ever found among 
them. And doubtless, in this country as in other 
countries. Congressional investigations will discover 
the occasional grafter and dishonest administrator. 
But it is none the less true here, as abroad, that the 
great body of business men who are serving the govern- 
ment are as loyally self-sacrificing as any one who is 

8 



behind the fighting lines; and the report in the West 
that the Eastern businessmen are largely self-seeking 
is as untrue and mischievous as the report in the East 
that most Western farmers are profiteering, or the 
report among employers that labor is generally disloyal, 
or the reports among the workingmen that their em- 
ployers are seeking only to get rich out of the pubUc 

need. 

Not in War for Markets 

Recently, in the White House, President Wilson 
was asked by one of our most famous financiers to ap- 
point a commission that should sageguard our foreign 
trade during the war and see to it that new foreign mar- 
kets were made ready for our peaceful penetration 
after the war. And the President replied that the 
Government would not appoint such a commission; that 
this country was not fighting to obtain foreign markets; 
that the struggle for foreign markets had been one of 
the predetermining causes of the conflict among the 
European nations, and it had been most difficult to 
make those nations beheve that America was not 
secretly inspired by a similar greed for spheres of in- 
fluence and "a place in the sun"; that America was not 
waging a commercial war or seeking any selfish ad- 
vantage, and the government would never appoint 
a commission that might, by its mere existence, mis- 
represent the motives of our people in their support of 
the nations fighting to defend the freedom of the world. 

That pronouncement has been made, again and again, 
in the President's public utterances. He has con- 
sistently acted upon it in his war policy. And the 
smoking-car statement that the war is "a rich man's 
war" or "a business man's war" is as deliberate a lie as 
any that the enemy has invented in order to confuse 
our people and divide them in their allegiance. 

9 



The Prussian Socialist 

It is a lie that has been given a cheerful support by 
one section of American socialists. As a political 
party that section was first organized in this country 
by German exiles. They have always been led by Ger- 
man sympathizers. It has been a rule among them 
that a man is not a socialist unless he pays dues to the 
party leaders, accepts all the party nominees of those 
leaders without question, subscribes to every plank of 
the party platform, and votes only a straight ticket 
under the party emblem. He did these things or he 
was expelled. That is a Prussian idea of organized 
servility and unquestioning obedience. It has suc- 
ceeded in Germany, but it has never succeeded here. 
At the outbreak of the war in Europe, the Prussian 
government, by means of false news and distorted dis- 
patches, made the German people believe that their 
country had been invaded by Russia and attacked by 
France; and, for a time, all the German socialists sup- 
ported their Government's war of imperial conquest, 
beheving that it was a war of self-defense. Since then, 
the independent socialists in Germany have learned 
that they were deceived. They are now fighting the 
German Government in Germany as the independent 
socialists are fighting the German Government here, 
under the leadership of men like John Spargo and 
Charles Edward Russell. The pro-German socialists 
in America who are opposing the United States Govern- 
ment are opposing it not because it is waging ''a business 
man's war," and they are socialistic in their convictions, 
but because it is waging a war against German ag- 
gression and they are German in their sympathies. 
The independent socialists in both countries are fight- 
ing the Kaiser and his commercial war of imperial con- 

10 



quest. And when the pro-German socialist in this 
country asks, "Why do you blame German socialists 
for supporting their government and yet blame Ameri- 
can socialists for not supporting their Government?" 
the answer is "Because in both cases, they are wrong; 
in both cases they are fighting against freedom and 
democracy, in support of military conquest and auto- 
cratic rule." 

Another German Trick 

In our Western states, another sort of class cleavage 
is being widened by German sympathizers. There, 
for a decade past, a political struggle has been pro- 
ceeding between reformers and corruptionists. In 
many states, the reformers have won. They have 
broken the political bosses and ousted their henchmen. 
When the Government boards at Washington called for 
volunteers in the work of organizing the trade and in- 
dustry of the country, many of the defeated political 
enemies of the Western commonwealths volunteered 
for service and were accepted. The assignment of such 
men to war work has been used "to give the war a 
black eye." It is argued that the dark powers which 
so long exploited the West are "running the war." 
It is hinted that the Government at Washington is 
innocently under their control. And German agents 
and German sympathizers are using that argument and 
giving that hint. 

It was inevitable that some discredited politicians 
should find their way into the ranks of a volunteer 
army of war- workers so hastily assembled. Such 
men would be eager for the chance to rehabilitate them- 
selves. They might even be genuinely loyal to the 
country at large, though they have never been loyal 
to the best interests of their home communities. It is as 

11 



absurd for anyone to turn against the war, because of 
the participation of these men, as it would be absurd 
for him to withdraw from the trenches if he found old 
political enemies serving beside him. It is his business 
to see that political crooks in war-work are watched as 
carefully as suspected renegades would be watched in 
camp. Meanwhile, it is a work in aid of the enemy to 
let suspicion of such men weaken support of the govem- 
men in its prosecution of the war. 

The Government la Frank 
The Government has pledged itself to give out 
instantly the facts about all military engagements, 
casualties, disasters, accidents and reverses. The 
administration is aware that to suppress any such 
facts would be fatal to the good faith and trust of 
the American people. Once a suppression of this 
kind was discovered, the nation would become a 
victim to every sort of groundless fear and un- 
allayable apprehension. It is necessary that the 
people should know the truth about their mili- 
tary operations in order that they may be loyal 
to their leaders and whole-hearted in the prosecu- 
tion of their duties. For that reason, a policy of 
absolute frankness has been adopted by the 
government. 

In the campaign against smoking-car rumors, the 
Government can only warn you: "Keep your ears open 
and your mouth closed. Believe anything yoU hear, 
if you wish to, but do not give rumors the support of 
your voice by repeating them. Let the German agents 
who invent these lies be the only persons who pass them 
on. That will make it easier to refute the lies. It will 
also make it easier to catch the liars. And it is neces- 

12 



sary to do both, because the lies are not idle lies, but 
lies designed to create dissension; and the liars are not 
idle liars, but German agents furthering German 
plans." 

Freedom of the Press 

.In the fight against the printed lie and the propa- 
ganda of seditious pro-Germans, the authorities are 
taking measures of legal suppression. They are not 
appealing to a censorship. They have allowed the 
enemy propagandist that freedom of speech and free- 
dom of the press which has existed in time of peace — 
the right of any person to say what he will and print 
what he will without first submitting it to the eye of 
authority. But after he has said it, or printed it, 
they are holding him to account before the courts 
under the provisions of the espionage act. They are 
denying him the use of the mails and defending the 
prohibition by legal process before the judges to whom 
he appeals. They are not silencing him in the secrecy 
of official censorship, as he has been silenced abroad. 
They are allowing him to take his case to the courts of 
law and the juries of public opinion. And his cry that 
they are infringing any rights of free speech and a free 
press, is a lie like his other lies — a lie in a war of lies 
which he is waging, in the interests of the enemy, to 
divide our people, embarrass our government, and 
impede our defense of our country against foreign 
aggression. 

In the Government's war against lies, the commercial 
traveler can be of great assistance. He meets all 
kinds of people. He goes to all parts of the country. 
He hears all sorts of stories. He can help to silence the 
Kaiserites in the smoking-car by demanding the origin 
of their lies or the authority for their rumors. He can 

13 



report the appearance of new lies and obtain a promp 
disproof of them. He can spread the disproof to silenc 
the falsehood. He can help the Government to pre 
vent enemy agents from abusing the confidence of th 
American people. He can help win the war by helpin 
to preserve the popular support of the nation's wa 
work where that support is being weakened by the dr 
rot of falsehood and corrosive slander and the rat-lik 
gnawing of enemy rodents with German fillings in theij; 
teeth. 



14 



One Hundred and One German Lies 

Nailed by the St. Louis Republic 

LIE No. 1. That Mr. Joseph P. Tumulty, secre- 
tary to President Wilson, was found guilty of treason, 
sent to Fort Leavenworth, stood up against a wall and 
shot. 

{Secretary Tumulty, in an official communication, has 
nailed this as a lie, without any foundation.) 

LIE No. 2. That a sweater knit in St. Louis for the 
soldiers in France, was sold by Red Cross workers and 
identified by the woman who knit it by a piece of cur- 
rency sewed into the fabric. 

(Heads of the Red Cross Society in St. Louis have 
branded this as a bald fabrication. Nothing handled by 
the Red Cross Society is sold.) 

LIE No. 3. That all the boys and men between the 
ages of 16 and 35 years of age are to be drafted into the 
army by January 1 . 

(Congress fixed the ages of men subject to the draft at 
21 to 31 years, inclusive, and has never changed this rule.) 

LIE No. 4. That tobacco collected through the 
various agencies for the men overseas is not given to 
them until they have paid from 60 cents to $2.50 a 
package for it. 

(The Republic brands this a lie. The Republic has 
sent several thousand dollars worth of tobacco to France, 
and not one cent has been charged the soldiers for it.) 

LIE No. 5. That no soldier or sailor, after he leaves 
American soil, is permitted to write home. 

(This lie is patent to hundreds of men and women who 

15 



have been receiving mail from friends and relatives in the 
expeditionary force in France.) 

LIE No. 6. Mrs. Charles G. Roe of Chicago says 
a caller told her that "everybody I know of is getting 
the cost of the wool they knit from the Government, 
and you ought to quit knitting until your expenses are 
allowed." 

{Congress has never authorized anyone to pay one cent 
for wool or for labor in the knitting of articles for the sol- 
diers and sailors.) 

LIE No. 7. That the recent registration of women ij 
was to find out how much money each had in the bank, : 
how much of this was owed and everything about each Ij 
registrant's personal affairs. 

{While this lie was given credence by many women who 
should have known better, still it is without foundation >i 
from the very fact that the registration was voluntary, and ' 
that questions of a personal nature were not asked. Any 
woman who registered knows this.) 

LIE No. 8. That the millions collected from the » 
public for Red Cross work goes into the pockets of 
thieves, and that the soldiers and sailors get none of it, 
nor any of its benefits. This lie was reported by J. H. 
Davis, secretary of the Elks at Mitchell, S. D. 

{Men and women at the head of the Red Cross Society 
are the most upright imaginable. They were selected for 
the work because of this fact. Work done abroad and in 
the army camps and cantonments in the United States by 
the Red Cross nails this as pro-German propaganda.) 

LIE No. 9. That Base Hospital Unit (Washington 
University) No. 21 had been annihilated while en route 
overseas, or that leading members of the organization 
had been executed as spies by the American Government. 

{Washington administration emphatically discredited 
this assertion in official communications.) 

16 



LIE No. 10. That canned goods put up by the 
housewives in St. Louis were to be seized by the 
Government and appropriated to the use of the army 
and navy. 

(This was run down hj the Women's Central Committee 
on Food Conservation and found to he pro-German "bunk." 
Government does not want canned goods from citizens.) 

LIE No. 11. Mary Reid Cory, who recently visited 
Chicago in the interest of Belgian prisoners in Germany, 
says that at a dinner recently a woman went to her and 
said, "We are every bit as bad as the Germans because 
the soldiers in training are being instructed to put out 
the eyes of every German captured." She said she had 
a son in one of the camps and he had written this to her. 

{Absolutely without foundation. Any man who is 
taking a course of instruction at any United States army 
camp will brand this as a falsehood . ) 

LIE No. 12. That all the money invested in Liberty 
Bonds by men and women and children throughout the 
United States will be lost. 

{Liberty Bonds are hacked by all the finances of the 
United States. Whenever the money so invested is "lost," 
this Government will have collapsed.") 

LIE No. 13. Comes from J. K. Kidder, enrolling 
clerk at the Wisconsin State Senate, who says he has 
repeatedly heard that soldiers at one of the Northern 
cantonments are seriously ill with a malady which army 
physicians have been unable to diagnose. 

{Surgeons at the cantonment in question assert there is 
only the usual amount of sickness in camp, and that they 
know the identity of each of the ailments. This story was 
started to frighten relatives of men at the camp and to 
discourage recruiting among their friends .) 

LIE No. 14. This was sent in by a Red Cross 
worker . It is to the effect that at Camp Funston "f our- 

17 



teen soldiers are sleeping on one bale of hay there be- 
cause there is no bedding or anything to make them 
comfortable," and that ''for the sHghtest infraction of 
a rule by a soldier of German extraction he is lined up 
against a wall and shot." 

{Officers at Camp Funston, Fort Riley, Kan., laughed 
when they heard this lie. They said an inspection of (he 
camp would refute it better than any statement from them. 
Soldiers at the camp hadn't heard of such conditions and 
knew that none of their number had been shot.) 

LIE No. 15. That the Pullman Company will not ij 
hire a man who does not wear a button showing he has f) 
contributed to the Y. M. C. A. war fund. 

{Officials of the Pullman Company deny this.) 

LIE No. 16. That sweaters knit by St. Louis women 
for soldiers in the trenches wear out in less than two 
weeks because of the inferior workmanship in the gar- 
ment. Many women have quit their knitting because 
of this lie. 

{Members of the Red Cross Society here say this is the 
most outrageous lie they have heard. The life of the 
sweaters, even under the hardest sort of conditions, is two 
months or more.) 

LIE No. 17. Women report they are terrorized over 
the information mysteriously disseminated that Gov- 
ernment agents are to raid all houses exhibiting food 
conservation cards, to determine that no meat is eaten 
on "meatless" days. Many cards have been quietly 
removed from the windows because of this fear. 

{Government agents have no intention now, nor will 
they have in the future, of raiding private homes where 
there is no reason to believe agents of the Kaiser are 
hidden. Men and women are on their honor to observe 
the * 'meatless'* days, nothing more). 

18 



LIE No. 18. Repetitions of the lies that schools 
in towns at or near training camps are to be closed 
because girls are about to become mothers come in 
droves. Towns in the neighborhood of any camp site 
are picked by Kaiser aids for this canard. 

{Investigators declare this is utterly without foundation. 
The morale of men at the training camps cannot be better. 
Schools are not being interfered with for any purpose, they 
declare.) 

LIE No. 19. That all of the "plums" at the officers' 
training camps fall to Roman Catholics. "You just 
watch and you'll see that it is so," Mrs. C. D. Gallen- 
tine of Morrison, 111., writes that she was toldl^f 

{The question of religion does not enter into the giving 
of commissions. Merit and ability to take the intensive 
training are the things that count at the officers^ training 
camps. Ask any man who has attended one.) 

LIE No. 20. Mrs. Gallentine also tells of a neigh- 
bor's maid who would not register when the women's 
census was taken, because "all they were doing it for 
was to get the girls' names so they could entice them 
into the cities and make white slaves of them." 

{How positively ridiculous is a story of this sort! If 
you believe it, ask any of the women here who registered, 
or who took an active part in furthering the. registration.) 

LIE No. 21. Harvard, 111., contributes another re- 
ligious he — that when the war is over the Roman 
Catholics here will be treated just as they were in 
Mexico after the revolution started there. 

{It is needless to say the American Government will never 
interfere in matters of religion.) 

LIE No. 22. This one is familiar, but has a new 
dress this time: That a mother sent her son at a 
training camp a big birthday cake, and then wrote 
him asking how he liked it. He rephed he had never 

19 



1 



received the cake, but that he had passed an officer's 
tent and had seen him eating it. 

(Wives, mothers and sweethearts in St. Louis of the 
thousands of men who have gone to the training camps and 
cantonments will nail this lie hard and fast if you will 
take the trouble to ask them about it.) 

LIE No. 23. Rector of Holy Innocents' Church at 
Racine, Wis. , reports this He about a family : That the 
family was put to death for giving out information 
which led to the destruction of England's greatest 
general. That a son was executed at Fort Sheridan, 
111., when caught in work of a treacherous nature, and 
that his religious affiliations had much to do with his 
disloyalty. 

(Government agents say this is only one of a million 
other lies of like nature which pro-German propagandists 
are circulating. Of course, there is no foundation for it . ) 

LIE No. 24. Mrs. Henry W. Wagon, 4129 Kossuth 
avenue, says a husky delivery wagon driver called at 
her home with a parcel a day or so ago. She asked 
him why he wasn't in the army, and he replied the 
Government makes no provision for dependent families. 

(Government makes this provision for dependents: Men 
with families or other dependents will not be called in the 
draft until an emergency, which is not even thought of now, 
arises. Heads of families are not even urged to enlist 
voluntarily, although provision is mode in the way of 
insurance and the like for their dependents if they care to 
join the colors.) 

LIE No. 25. The sweater with the $10 bill sewed 
into its fabric which the pro-Germans say the Red 
Cross sold, has appeared this time in Jefferson City. 
Man told Missouri Council of Defense yesterday of the 
lie. 

(Robert Glenn, publicity manager for the council, says 

20 



the tale is too utterly ridiculous to believe, and is circulated 
merely as a scheme to thwart the efforts of the Red Cross.) 

LIE No. 26. From Bonne Terre, Mo., That two 
Chicago nurses were killed in a mutiny, and that 14 
men had committed suicide at Jefferson Barracks be- 
cause of the ill treatment accorded them. 

{Commandant at Jefferson Barracks offers post records 
to disprove the second lie. While it is impossible to learn 
where the "Chicago nurses" were killed, stilly it is safe to 
say this is but another piece of "bunk." 

LIE No. 27. Here's one from St. Francois, Mo.' 
That a St. Louis father was called to the deathbed of his 
son, an enhsted man in the navy, and that no privacy 
was accorded him. During this last interview, how- 
ever, the attention of the armed guard was distracted, 
and the son exhibited his body, saying his legs had been 
shot away in a mutiny. 

{Secretary of the Navy refutes this lie by the statement 
that there is not a better behaved body of men in the world 
than those in the United States Navy, and that the ex- 
cellent discipline since the outbreak of war only proves 
that conditions for the enlisted men are ideal in every 
respect.) 

LIE No. 28. M. E. R. of Sherman, Mo., says it is 
reported" there that an American transport has been 
sunk by a German submarine and 500 soldiers and 
sailors lost. One man was heard to say that he read 
of the disaster in a German newspaper. 

{Just a Pro-German lie.) 

LIE No. 29. That Mrs. Frank V. Hammer, chair- 
man of the St. Louis Red Cross chapter, receives 
$15,000 a year for her services, and that George W. 
Simmons, chairman of the Southwestern district, 
$30,000. 

21 



{Both Mrs. Hammer and Simmons donate their serv- 
ices and pay their own traveling expenses. In addition, 
Simmons and Mrs. Hammer have each made large per- 
sonal subscriptions to the Red Cross fund.) 

LIE No. 30. Edmund Kerruish, merchant, Festus, 
Mo., says he was informed that the Government will 
not accept sweaters and mufflers knitted for soldiers. 

(Col. C. H. Murray, commandant at Jefferson Bar- 
racks, yesterday acknowledged receipt of several hundred 
sweaters from the American Red Cross. He said: 

*'If you could have seen the line of boys when these 
comfortable garments were distributed it would have done 
your heart good.") 

LIE No, 31. B. C. J. asks if it is true that the 
Y. M. C. A. is charging soldiers for beds in France. 
He says a pro-German informed him that our fighting 
men were taxed $2.50 for one night's lodging in France. 

{Philemon Bevis, general secretary of the local Y. M. 
C. A., spiked this yarn. "The Y. M. C. A. does not 
furnish lodgings in its huts. All service to soldiers is 
free. Stamps, candy, etc., are sold at cost to the boys in 
khaki.'*) 

LIE No. 32. That the Red Cross is selling yarn to 
women who are knitting sweaters and mufflers for the 
soldiers. 

{The basis for this tale is a rule enforced by the Red 
Cross, which requires a small deposit vjhen yarn is turned 
over to applicants. The deposit is refunded when the 
knitted garments and left-over yarn are returned.) 

LI£ No. 33. Piedmont, Mo., comes across with 
this lie, which a German salesman for a St. Louis coffee 
house is circulating: That the "tents" at Gamp Funs- 
ton, Fort Riley, Kan,, are without heat in the most 
severe weather. 

(In the first place there are no tents at Camp FunstoUf 

22 



which makes this German a liar at the start. In the second 
place the entire camp is heated by giant heating plants 
installed before winter set in. The men are comfortably 
taken care of. They say so themselves.) 

LIE No. 34. From Frank Gottingham, Greenup, 
111., comes this story: That the Government is going 
to confiscate aU property, paying the owners for it, 
but then compelling them to purchase Liberty Bonds 
with the money. People in Cumberland County, he 
writes, are actually half afraid this will come to pass. 

{Cumberland County, or any other county, needn't be 
one whit frightened by such a fabrication. The Govern- 
ment has means of financing this war without seizing any 
man's personal property and will be able to get along 
nicely. The Government wants everyone who can afford 
it to buy all the Liberty Bonds possible, but the Government 
isn't compelling you or anyone else to purchase one cent's 
worth if you don't want to.) 

LIE No. 35. That Mr. Hoover had charge of the 
distribution of foodstuffs in Belgium, and because he 
did such poor work he was compelled to leave that 
country. He then came to America and got the job of 
Food Administrator here. 

(Mr. Hoover was never Food Administrator in Belgium 
or any other country, except the United States. He was 
chairman of the Belgian Relief Commission, and only 
praise has ever been heard from those who are in a position 
to know.) 

LIE No. 36. Here's another food-pledge lie: That 
the United States is soon to begin starving everyone 
who signed one of them. 

(Do not worry. Just so long as there is food in the 
world the United States will get its share of it, and the 
Government isn't going to starve anyone. Propaganda 
by pro-Germans, that's all.) 

28 



LIE No. 37, C, E. Johnson of 2716 St. Vincent 
avenue advises The Repubhc of this lie which has been 
brought to his attention: That American soldiers in 
France are either burned or buried on the spot where 
they fall and that it will be impossible to ever return 
their bodies to the United States. 

{The exact situation is this: American soldiers who 
are killed in France mill be buried there. Their bodies 
cannot be returned to America until peace is declared. 
All graves will be marked and identified. It will be 
possible to have the bodies exhumed and brought home 
after the war, but not before. American soldiers' bodies 
are not incinerated, unless by accident.) 

LIE No. 38. W. C. Staunton, 111., says pro-Ger- 
mans are circulating a report in his section that the 
soldiers were forced to purchase Liberty Bonds and 
are being paid but $13 a month wages, the balance of 
whatever is due them being applied to the bonds. 

(American soldiers were encouraged in the purchase of 
Liberty Bonds , but were not compelled to buy them. They 
receive their full compensation every month, and whatever 
is applied to their bond purchase is deducted by the men 
themselves and not by their superiors.) 

LIE No. 39. G. W. R. of Red Bud, 111., reports 
these lies in circulation near his home: That soldiers 
training at Camp Taylor, Ky., are not fed sufficiently; 
that a woman who wanted to enlist in the Red Cross 
was told she would be made to leave her family to go 
to France; that a petition was circulated at Waterloo 
declaring it a mistake to send American soldiers to 
France, because they would starve; that women who 
registered would be drafted by the Government, and 
that persons who signed the food conservation pledges 
would not be permitted to eat home-cured meats. 

{Soldiers at Camp Taylor are fed the same as soldiers 
at any other army cantonment — wholesomely, substantially 

24 



and abundantly: women who enlist in Red Cross work, 
unless they specify they want to be nurses and see active 
service abroad, will not be sent overseas or taken from their 
families; the man who circulated the petition in Waterloo 
should be turned over to the Government and locked up as 
an enemy of the country; women who registered will not be 
drafted by the Government, and persons who signed Hoover 
cards may eat home-cured meats whenever they see fit — • 
only they are urged to observe the meatless day each week.) 

LIE No. 40. An anonj^mous writer from St. Louis 
signing himself ''John Doe," wants to know if this is a 
lie or just pure ignorance: A German woman living 
near him says that when soldiers reach New York on 
their way to France, and get "cold feet," they are put 
in chains and thrown aboard ship by order of President 
Wilson. If they show further resistance, she says, their 
legs are blown off with bombs. 

(In the first place, American soldiers don't get "cold 
feet" In the second place it isnH necessary to chain an 
American soldier to get him aboard ship on his way to 
Europe to help knock the Kaiser gallywest. And again, 
President Wilson leaves the care of transportation overseas 
to the Secretary of War or the Secretary of the Navy.) 

LIE No. 41. Grannis, Ark., says pro-Germans are 
circulating this story there: That the Americans cap- 
tured in the first collision in France returned to their 
own lines a few nights ago, telling of the wonderful 
food they found in the German trenches, and declaring 
they had their first square meal since arriving overseas 
while they were German captives. 

(None of the Americans captured by the Germans have 
been returned to the American lines. They are interned, 
it is believed, in the German interior. The War Depart- 
ment, through the Red Cross in Switzerland, is sending 
food to these and other captives at regular intervals, through 
an arrangement with Germany, whereby the delivery of 
this food is guaranteed.) 

25 



LIE No. 42. Liars in Bunker Hill, 111., are re- 
Bponsible for this yarn: That Colorado now is housing 
10,000 Enghshmen, who are biding their time until 
Uncle Sam gets all his soldiers and their paraphernalia 
to France, when the EngUsh will rise and seize the 
United States for England. 

{Of course there is not one scintilla of truth in this story.) 

LIE No. 43. Here is one from St. Louis: That the 
commandant at Jefferson Barracks compelled soldiers 
to take out Government insurance, and where the man 
has no near relatives, the commandant's sister is made 
beneficiary; that this sister already is beneficiary for 
dozens of soldiers. 

(Col. Murray, commanding the Barracks j says this is 
the most infamous story he has ever heard. He urges the 
men who pass through the Barracks to take out the Govern- 
ment insurance, but he has never named or even suggested 
a beneficiary for the policy.) 

LIE No. 44. "A Reader" in St. Louis sent this 
one: That soldiers at Camp Funston are so jpoorly 
fed they are compelled to spend virtually all of their 
monthly pay for food enough to keep alive. 

{Camp Funston soldiers are better fed than many civil' 
ians in St. Louis. Their food is wholesome, abundant 
and of the sort which *' sticks to the ribs." Ask the first 
soldier you meet on the street what sort of fare he had while 
ai camp.) 

LIE No, 45. German propaganda already is at 
work seeking to destroy the success of the wheatless 
and meatless days. If you hear stories of this sort, or 
that soldiers are wasting bread, or that agents of our 
allies are selling American wheat to Germany, or similar 
silly untruths, bluntly ask the person circulating these 
lies, "Are you a pro-German?" 

LIE No. 46. Sarah S of St. Louis has a friend 

26 



who knitted a sweater for the Red Cross. She put her 
card in the package, asking the recipient to write. 
She received a note from the soldier, praising the 
sweater. He wound up by saying he had to pay $19 
for it. 

(The Red Cross already has conclusively proven that 
this lie — similar to scores already circulated — is ridiculous . ) 

LIE No. 47. Dr. Qharles Reilly, oculist, 615 Locust 
street, says he has been informed West Point officers 
refuse to recognize by salutation officers in the new 
National Army. 

{This is an unmitigated lie, as newspaper reports, 
photographs and interviews coming from all points in the 
United States have shown how appreciative the West 
Point men are of the great patriotism displayed by their 
brother officers in the National Army. 

LIE No. 48. Pro-German propagandists are spread- 
ing reports that thousands of drafted men are deserting 
from the National Army cantonments; that hundreds 
already have been shot. 

(Army officers and newspaper correspondents, always 
on hand ai the various cantonments, say the spirit of 
patriotism is so high and the men so well satisfied that 
they wouldn't desert if all guards were put to sleep.) 

LIE No. 49. Reports are being circulated that men 
who enhst in the navy before December 15, 1917, are 
to be grabbed for the army, as the navy now is full. 

(Washington has issued an official order allowing 
drafted men to enlist in the navy up to December 15.) 

LIE No. 50. Among the absurd rumors is one that 
the United States proposes to confiscate money on de- 
posit in banks. 

(The absurdity of this statement is obvious on its face. 
This rumor is wholly without foundation, and probably 

27 



circulated for an evil purpose. Secretary McAdoo has 
issued a statement that the Government "has no power to 
confiscate the money of depositors in banks") 

LIE No. 51. From E. L., a St. Louisian, comes 
word that he was hstening to a conversation the other 
day, when someone remarked: *'You never hear of 
Morgan or Schwab any more because they were killed 
three months ago." 

(Morgan and Schwab are still transacting business 
at the old stand.) 

LIE No. 52. A reader at Christopher, 111., tells 
The Republic that it is a common story thereabouts 
that money contributed to the Y. M. C. A. is not used 
for the benefit of soldiers, but is turned into a fund for 
the suppression of liquor making and saloons. 

(There is no truth in the story, naturally. All money 
contributed to the Y. M. C. A.'s war fund is used in 
making life more comfortable for the men at the front. It 
is used in establishing "huts" for the soldiers. If you 
want more proof of this, ask the first soldier you meet.) 

LIE No. 53. The Shelby County Chapter of the 
American Red Cross, located at Shelbina, Mo., says 
this report is circulated there: That socks which Red 
Cross workers knit for the soldiers are thrown aside as 
quickly as a hole appears in them; that soldiers are 
not permitted to wear mended hose. 

(This is not a difficult story to answer, but the answer 
must not be misconstrued. Soldiers are not permitted to 
wear mended socks while they are on an active tour of duty. 
It is readily understood that no man could hike any 
distance at all were he wearing mended socks. However, 
soldiers who receive socks from the Red Cross nurse them 
tenderly and make them last as long as they will possibly 
hold together. Never fear, Shelbina, thai American 
soldiers waste anything given them.) 

28 



LIE No. 54. B. Schwartz, 1330 North Newstead 
avenue, says he overheard a conversation the other day 
in which it was stated as a fact that an American trans- 
port had been sunk and that the mother of a soldier 
aboard wrote Secretary Baker and asked for informa- 
tion, that Secretary Baker replied: "Don't worry; 
your son is lying safely at the bottom of the sea." 

(It is understood at once what the effect of such a story 
would be on a mother's mind — a mother whose son is 
overseas, or about to go. But there is no truth in the story 
at all. Secretary Baker is human, and would not reply to a 
letter in such a flippant manner. Relatives of all men 
who lose their lives in the service are immediately notified. 
No effort at secrecy in a case of that kind.) 

LIE No. 55. From a St. Louis source comes this 
one: That a German doctor in the United States 
Army at Camp Bowie, Tex., used spinal meningitis 
serum instead of typhoid serum, sending 1,400 men to 
the hospital, and that he was shot for it the latter part 
of last week. 

(Col. P.P. Reynolds, Surgeon General's Office, Wash- 
ington, D. C, had this to say of the report: ^'It is the 
most absurd and one of the wildest stories I have yet 
heard.") 

LIE No. 56. Virgil A. DufF of Pearl, 111., classes 
this one, which he sent yesterday, as the "biggest lie of 
them all": That drafted soldiers at the cantonments 
will not be permitted arms or ammunition during 
their training because they would rebel and kill their 
ofl&cers. 

(Duff wasn't far wrong about the size of this lie, but it 
is self -contradictory . If drafted men will rebel in canton- 
ments while training and cannot be permitted to handle 
firearms or ammunition, what will prevent them from 
doing the same thing when they have completed their 
course of instruction ?) 

29 



LIE No. 57. Esta York, Elkville, Jackson County, 
111., wants to know if there is any truth in the report 
that President Wilson will seize all hogs in the country, 
even those which farmers raise to kill for home con- 
sumption. 

(By no means is there any truth in the report. It ia 
pure German propaganda, nothing mdre.) 

LIE No. 58. A Benton, 111., reader sends The Re- 
pubhc a clipping from his home town paper, which, 
under glaring headlines, devotes half a column to a 
story to the effect that German prisoners are so well fed 
that women living in the cities near by are up in arms 
because of waste and the class of food served. He says 
this particular story is a fair sample of the news this 
paper prints weekly, in a community of German folk. 

{It is not denied by Washington thatGerman prisoners in 
America are well fed. They are. But there is no waste, 
and the women living near the camps are not up in arms 
because of either the food served or the waste which the 
Benton paper says is so apparent.) 

LIE No. 59. Propagandists are circulating a story 
that boys in the cantonments are not permitted to see 
home newspapers, so they cannot tell what is going on 
in their home towns or in the world in general. 

(Quite naturally, there is no truth in this story. The 
Republic is able to nail this lie. This paper circulates 
freely in cantonments and at training camps.) 

LIE No. 60. This story was freely circulated last 
week: That men at Camp Funston are so poorly cared 
for and are so despondent because of their unwilling- 
ness to serve in the army that they end their lives by 
throwing themselves under trains. 

(This is so plainly a lie that denial is not necessary. 

However, soldiers on permission in St. Louis say their 

fare is excellent and their treatment also. No deaths can 

occur in the camps, without the news becoming known 

30 



immediately. Newspaper correspondents at the camps 
do not report any such loss of life.) 

LIE No. 61. Mrs. S. of Farmington, Mo., says 
that it is common gossip in that section that half of all 
the funds pledged to the Red Cross in America will be 
given by the Government to the Catholics. 

(The Government isn't interested in religion just now. 
It's principal business is carrying on the war. No 
money, no matter what source it comes from, is given to 
any religious sect. The Government is not touching a 
nickel of Red Cross money.) 

LIE No. 62. A young woman at Clinton, Mo., 
writes that it has been difficult to secure signers for 
the Hoover Food Pledges there because of "bunk" 
being circulated to prevent it. Children are told not 
to sign the cards, because they will be sent to Germany 
to work for prisoners, or sent to an army post to do 
farm work. 

(Of course there is no truth in either report. It is pro- 
German sentiment seeking to discount war preparations in 
America which is responsible for this sort of thing.) 

LI E No . 63 . Here is one of the worst lies yet brought 
to the attention of The Republic: That German spies 
in the Government Printing office have injected bacteria 
of one form or another into the Liberty Bonds, which, 
in the course of a few months leaves them a dirty gray 
piece of flimsy paper which crumbles at the shghtest 
touch. Because of this lie, farmers in the vicinity of 
Razenburg, 111., are afraid to invest in the Bonds. 

(The Federal agents in charge of the Government Print- 
ing Office at Washington declare there is no word of truth 
in the story. There are no spies in the plant. Neither 
will the bonds fade and crumble away after a few months.) 

LIE No. 64. J. B. Ross, a St. Louis patriot, ad- 
vances the information that a letter carrier, talking in 

31 



a downtown restaurant the other day, declared S.OOO 
United States soldiers had already been killed in France 
and that a soldier at Jefferson Barracks gave him all 
such information, "which the Government withholds. 
^(0/ course, the letter carrier was retailing some more 
"biwk." There has been no such casualty list in France, 
and soldiers at Jefferson Bairacks know less of what is 
going on in the army than many civilians. Just propa- 
ganda, that's all.) 

LIE No. 65. A man wants to know if it is true "that 
two soldiers were frozen to death in a trench at Fort 
Sill and that the nation is losing from 30 to 40 men a 
day in France, of which no information reaches the 
newspapers. 

{The Republic has a staff correspondent at Fort Sill. 
He has access to the news there. No soldiers have been 
frozen to death. There is a death list almost daily now 
from France, but every soldier's name is given the public 
as quickly as it is sent the man's parents. No effort is 
being made to suppress this sort of information. The 
censor holds up neivs concerning movements of troops, 
ammunition, supplies and the like. Nothing else.) 

LIE No. 66. Another reader wants to know if it is 

true that men are refusing to enlist in the regular army 
and are offering themselves for other branches because 
they have been told they will not see service in France 
if they go in as engineers, signal corps, aviators and 
the like. 

(Every man who goes into the army, more than likely, 
will be .sent overseas sooner or later. Enlistments in the 
regidar army are not falling off. National Guards-men, 
engineers, aviators and 7ness men already are on duty in 
France, thus ginng the lie to this story.) 

LIE No. 67. Omar D. Gray of The Sturgeon (Mo.) 
Leader, sends a clipping from The Democrat-Tribune 
of Jefferson City, Mo., to the effect that knitting for 

32 



the soldiers and sailors is unnecessary, and declaring 
that "press reports indicate the War Department looks 
upon this knitting campaign as hysteria." This story, 
Gray says, is going the rounds of the small-town 
newspapers. 

(Mr. Gray is doing the public and theGovernment a greed 
favor in calling attention to this sort of propaganda. 
Quite recently the executives at Washington, in published 
statements, and in public utterances, begged, actually 
begged, the women of the United States not to give up 
their knitting for one instant. More, more and still 
MORE articles must be knit, they said. The effect of 
such articles as that from the Jefferson City paper is to 
put a stop to knitting, the very thing pro-Germans want; 
anything to hurt the cause in Amenca. The editors of 
small town Jiewspapers should be more careful, or at least 
investigate the truth of reports such as these, before giving 
publicity to them.) 

LIE No, 68. Maiden, Mo., reports pro-Germans 
are circulating stories there concerning the health and 
morals of nurses employed in Red Cross work, both in 
the United States and overseas. This person said he 
was told recently in St. Louis that 600 nurses in America 
alone are now ill in hospitals. 

(It is questionable whether such a lie luas ever told in St. 
Louis. It is the first time it hus been brought to the atten- 
tion of The Republic. At any rate, while some nurses 
may be ill — and who doesnH get sick now and again? — • 
there are not 600 of them in all the hospitals in the 
United States. The morals of women employed in Red 
Cross hospital work are above reproach.) 

LIE No. 69. A story recently originated in Ger- 
many to the effect that a woman spy has been executed 
in the United States. Its widespread use is nothing 
but propaganda. 

(The State Department sent an official denial of the 

83 



report to all American Consuls and legations in European 
neutral countries. The name of the woman was given os 
Anna Huitems. Just **6wnfc," that's all.) 

LIE No. 70. For two days there has been a rumor 
current about the country that an American transport 
going overseas had been sunk, with heavy loss of Hfe. 
It was said that two transports, bearing 11,000 men, 
and the superdreadnaught Texas, had been sunk, and 
that the American Government was suppressing the 
news. 

{The Government at Washington announced last night 
that the source of this lie, termed propaganda^ had been 
unearthed in Guadlajara, Mexico, where it was printed 
in a Spanish newspaper, and said to have been a cablegram 
received from Spain. The Government announces this is 
more German propaganda and that there is no word of 
truth in it.) 

LIE No. 71. The Democrat-Tribune of Jefferson 
City, Mo., prints a story to the effect that 3,000 girls 
are to be enlisted by the Y. W. C. A. of Seattle, Wash., 
as dancing partners for soldiers at Camp Lewis, and 
that they are to be paid a minimum of $15 a week and 
a commission of 5 cents on each dance. 

{There is no reasonable excuse for the publication of 
such a story. It is plainly propaganda. Such stories 
hurt campaigns for raising funds for legitimate enter- 
prises. Three thousand girls at $15 a week means $45,000 
a week salaries, or more than $2,000,000 a year. Nothing 
but "bunk.") 

LIE No. 72. A report has been circulated and^has 
gained some credence in certain localities to the effect 
that the food administration has limited the supply of 
salt because, if salt cannot be obtained, farmers will 
be unable to cure and pack pork for home consumption. 

{The administration emphatically denies this story, 

34 



There is no general shortage of salt, nor have steps been 
taken to limit the use of salt.) 

LIE No. 73. Florence, Mo., sends word it is com- 
mon gossip in that section "that President Wilson is in 
England's pay"; that a soldier at Camp Funston says 
he receives one slice of bread and four beans at meal 
time, and that others write they are ill-treated. 

(A person with one spoonful of brains wouldn't believe 
any one of these three stories for a minute. There is no 
need to deny the statement concerning President Wilson. 
Ask the next soldier you meet how he has been fed at Camp 
Funston, or any other army cantonment, and how he was 
treated there. That will nail the last two lies.) 

LIE No. 74. F. C. Winkle of Greenfield, Mo., 
writes that a story is circulated there to the effect that 
soldiers at army cantonments are not compelled to eat 
either beef or pork which is left from meal to meal and 
thus cause the waste of hundreds of pounds of meat 
every day. Mr. Winkle, one-time soldier himself, 
knows this story has no truth, in fact, but he says there 
are a lot of narrow-minded persons who believe it. 

{This lie has been nailed previously in this column. 
There is a minimum of waste in all army camps. Prob- 
ably a lot of persons believe one set of cooks prepare meals 
for every man in camp. As a matter of fact, each com- 
pany of soldiers has its own mess outfit and rations are 
apportioned according to the number of men to be fed. 
This brings about a minimum of waste.) 

LIE No. 75. Word comes from Falcon, Mo., that 
pro-Germans are circulating the story the Government 
will compel every man and woman to buy Thrift Stamps 
and Liberty Bonds, and that the Government also in- 
tends confiscating without compensation all the walnut 
timber in America. 

{The Government urges everyone to buy Thrift Stamps 
and Liberty Bonds . It is not compulsory. But the man 

35 



or woman who doesn't 'purchase either — who doesnH lend 
his or her Government every possible cent — is a traitor at 
heart and should be watched. As for the walnut timber, 
it's too absurd to even deny. If the Government needs 
walnut timber it will buy it, and more than likely at the 
owner's own figure.) 

LIE No. 76. Belleville, 111., reports a story is in 
circulation there to the effect it will be impossible for 
the Government to send drafted men to France until 
the Constitution of the United States is amended. 
The excuse for the story is that President Wilson hasn't 
power to order drafted men overseas. 

(The drafted soldiers will be sent overseas just as quickly 
as their period of training is completed. It won't require 
any amendment to the Constitution to get the selects into 
France.) 

LIE No. 77. A traveling salesman says at Black 
Jack, Mo., Germans are circulating the story that 
several American transports, loaded with soldiers, 
have been sunk by German submarines, and that Wash- 
ington is withholding the news until the draft army is 
filled. Another story is that many French girls from 
13 to 18 years of age are soon to become mothers by 
American soldiers. 

{When American transports are sunk, no effort will be 
made by Washington to withhold the information. 
One American soldier in France has been tried by court- 
martial and executed since the United States overseas 
force reached France, because of an attack upon a French 
woman. No other such outrage has been committed. 
American soldiers are not that sort.) 

LIE No. 78. A reader at Seventy-Six, Mo., sends 
word that a story is in circulation to the effect that 
soldiers at Camp Funston are not permitted to write to 
relatives. One woman there, this reader says, declares 

36 



she received a letter from her son at camp, telling her it 
would be his last letter. 

(It is barely possible, of course, that some movement of 
troops from Camp Funston is anticipated. In such an 
event letter writing would he temporarily stopped, because 
some of the soldiers would not keep the secret of their 
movement from their relatives, which the Government 
declares is imperative. If sv/^h a contingency has not 
arisen, there is no truth in the story.) 

LIE No. 79. Porter Bennett of Mesquite, Tex., 
sends a copy of "The Bible Student's Monthly," a re- 
hgious paper, so-called, in which the statement ap- 
pears that "Even in America the conditions in many 
places are becoming intolerable; the people are restless 
and many women and children are frantically crying 
for bread. The conditions prevaihng are leading on to 
a certain revolution and anarchy, the like of which the 
world has never known." 

{This paper is printed at Brooklyn, N. Y. The 
InterncUional Bible Students' Association is publisher. 
No foundation in fact for the statement printed in that 
magazine can he found at any point in the United States. 
Government officials declare there is no situation at any 
place in America such as this magazine describes.) 

LIE No. 80. A "lie" in circulation at Atlanta, 
Mo., is to the effect that the United States will have to 
fight England after Germany is disposed of — the spoils 
being the cause. 

{More ''bunk." There will be no "spoils" when the 
United States gets through with this war. This is not a 
war of conguest, hut a fight for freedom.) 

LIE No, 81. There is a story in circulation in St. 
Louis that the Red Cross pays $1,000 a month rent for 
the quarters it occupies in the Railway Exchange build- 
ing, and a hke amount for the quarters occupied by the 
Christmas Red Cross Campaign Committee. 

37 



{The 21 rooms occupied by the Red Cross in the Rail- 
way Exchange building are donated to the cause, absolutely 
free of any cost whatever. The management of the build- 
ing sees to that. The Equitable Life Insurance Company 
donated the Campaign Committee's headquarters gratis.) 

LIE No. 82. From Bellflower, Mo., comes word 
that a story is in circulation there to the effect that Red 
Cross workers get 25 cents for each dollar they collect. 

{There is no truth in the story, of course. The Republic 
nas repeatedly nailed these Red Cross stories as rank fabri- 
cations. No persons connected loith Red Cross campaigns 
for funds receive a cent for their services.) 

LIE No. 83. A reader at Carlsbad, N. M., says he 
overheard a pro-German make the remark that Japan 
is making big loans to Germany; that under a secret 
treaty between the two nations Japan is compelled to 
make these loans. 

{Diplomatic Washington says there is nothing to the 
story. Japan has professed friendship for the Entente 
Powers, and there is nothing to date to make anyone "on 
the inside'* believe this nation doesn't mean what it has 
said.) 

LIE No. 84. A St. Louis man says he has heard on 
several occasions that some 150,000 Japanese and 50,- 
000 Germans are massed in Mexico, waiting the word 
to swing an attack upon the United States. 

{There are a great many Japanese and a great many 
Germans in Mexico. There is nothing at this time to 
make Washington believe the Japanese are allied with 
the Germans in Mexico, or that the Japs plan an attack 
upon America. The Germans there doubtless would like 
to make reprisal raids of some sort, but the Mexican 
boundary line with the United States is well guarded.) 

LIE No. 85. Reports have been circulated in St. 
Louis to the effect that 16 soldiers temporarily quar- 

38 



tered in the First Regiment Armory, Grand avenue 
and Market street, have pneumonia, and that two of 
them have died. Also that conditions at the Armory 
are unsanitary and that the men are not being given 
medical attention and that they are left to care for them- 
selves. 

{This lie is one thatLievi. A.L. Clark, in charge of the 
detachment of 1,100 men at the Armory, characterizes as a 
damnable one. Only seven men have been sent to the 
hospital from the Armory, and none of these had pneumo- 
nia. No deaths have occurred at all. One man had 
scarlet fever, caving the quarantining of the Armory, 
Ideut. Clark said, and the quarantine will be lifted to-day. 
In fact, some of the men last night attended an entertain- 
ment at the Y. M. C. A. Lieut. Dr. Harwitz is in at- 
tendance at the Armory day and night.) 

LIE No. 86. Another he showing the "deUcateness" 
oi pro-German bunk is one to the effect that an Ameri- 
can soldier "put one over" on the censor to let his people 
know that the soldiers are starving. His letters are 
supposed to have arrived with entire sections deleted. 
Finally, according to the story, he suggested in the 
letter that his family should save the stamp as a sou- 
venir. When the stamp was removed the message of 
a starving condition was found beneath it. 

(This is so plainly a sample of the original pro-German 
lies that no refutation is needed. The American soldiers 
are not starving and there is no danger they vnll ever starve.) 

LIE No. 87. Once more the lie of poisoned Red 
Cross yarn is being circulated. This story is to the 
effect that sweaters and other knitted articles are being 
made from yarn which is soaked in poison of deadly 
nature. 

(There are 6,000 women in St. Louis knitting for the 
Red Cross. All of these women know how much of pro- 
German bunk the story is. It is circulated for no other 

39 



reason than to hinder army enlistments, or to create a 
feeling of unrest in the minds of mothers.) 

LIE No. 88. J. H. Gibbs of Vogt, Mo., writes 
The Republic that a merchant in Bunker, Mo., is 
telling the people there that thousands of tons of wheat, 
being shipped to France by the United States, is being 
made into whiskey and sold to the soldiers. He said he 
could furnish the name of the story-teller and the proof, 
if necessary. 

{Everybody knows, or should know, that the American 
soldiers are not allowed to drink whiskey, either at home or 
abroad, and that hundreds of saloons here have been closed 
for selling liquor to soldiers. Gen. Pershing in France is 
not allowing the soldiers more license there than they have 
in the United States.) 

LIE No. 89. A Hamburg, Mo., woman has written 
to The Republic that she has been told that all knitted 
articles sent from America to France are knitted too 
loosely and must be raveled out and worked over 
before the garments can be worn. 

{This is pure hunk — nothing more. Meant for nothing 
but to discourage knitting activities here. If it were true 
the Government would not permit the shipment of sweaters 
and other garments, and would not allow the Red Cross ^ 
official relief branch of the army, to encourage the work.) 

LIE No. 90. J. Richard Garstang, an attorney of 
Chamois, Mo., reports that a retail merchant of that 
place is circulating the tale that in Gasconnade County, 
relatives received the bodies of two soldiers, sent back 
from camp for burial, with the caskets marked "Con- 
tagious, Do Not Open." It was further averred that 
when the parents opened the caskets, the soldiers were 
found to have two bullet holes each in their heads. 

{This faint attempt to jam the machinery of the Na- 
tional Army furnishes denial in itself. The War De- 

40 



partment has announced repeatedly that official publica- 
tion of all deaths in the National Army will be made, 
regardless of the nature of such deaths > If soldiers are 
to be shot, notification of their death penalty will be spread 
broadcast as a warning to others. Just another morsel 
for the unintelligent to chew on is this obviously pro- 
German lie.) 

LIE No. 91. A report from Cuba said the body of 
a soldier, who died at Camp Funston, had been shipped 
by express to his widow in Cuba, with collect charges 
of $12, and that the widow had to procure the sum from 
friends, being herself without funds. 

{This report has been denied before, it being the revival 
of a tale which could be circulated without eliciting any 
immediate facts . The body in question was found to have 
been accompanied by an officer from Camp Funston, with 
all expenses paid by the Government.) 

LIE No. 92. Similar to the Cuba case is this from 
Steelville: The body of a soldier, who died at Camp 
Funston, was sent to his mother with charges, collect, 
the woman having to pay between $20 and $30. 

(A letter was sent to the railroad agent at Steelville, 
asking him to verify the report. He wrote back: "The 
report is a lie. The body of Thomas Gruver was sent 
here collect, but the Government paid all of the charges 
from this end. They handle all of their shipments that 
way.") 

LIE No. 93. J. B. Hinchey of St. Louis told The 
Republic he had heard reports that 15 to 18 aviators 
are killed daily at Scott Field, near Belleville, about 
which the public hears nothing. He said this report no 
doubt caused anxiety among mothers whose sons are 
now or will be in the aviation service. 

(It is just this purpose for which such pro-German bunk 
is circulated. The War Department is giving to the 

41 



public information of every death that occurs anywhere in 
the army, no matter in what branch, and without regard to 
whether death results from natural or accidental causes.) 

LIE No. 94. A St. Louis woman writes The Re- 
public of hearing the story that all our wheat is sent 
abroad to make whiskey. She said she had heard of a 
woman who refused to sign the Hoover pledge on the 
ground that she would not do without wheat flour be- 
cause whiskey is made of all that is sent abroad. 

{This is clearly more "bunh" to hamper theGovernment^ a 
conservation work. The views of this country on the 
whiskey question are too clear now to give any reason for 
belief in such a story. Besides, but little wheat is used in 
making whiskey.) 

LIE No. 95. Report of another story, alleging poor 
treatment of soldiers in the army camps, comes from 
D. C. Boydstun of Atlanta, Mo., who said he heard cwo 
women talking over the telephone. One of the women 
Boydstun writes, has a nephew at Camp Doniphan, 
where, according to the reported telephone con versa 
tion, he had to dig in trenches at night while suffering 
from pneumonia. 

{This lie is so plainly nothing but ''bunk" of pro- 
German kind, it hardly needs refuting again. Jt is 
common knowledge among those who have seen the camps 
or talked with men on leave that they are thriving on the 
treatment received.) 

LIE No. 96. Frank E. Murray, 5239 Cabanne 
avenue, told The Repubhc that in Alton, 111., a story 
was being circulated to the effect that a big manufactur- 
ing concern there had been given a Government con- 
tract to manufacture bottles; the bottles to be filled 
with poison for the American soldiers to take if cap- 
tured by Germans. 

{There was never a piece of "bunk" more plainly ap' 
parent than this lie. Its purpose is clear.) 

42 



LIE No. 97. Marvin R. Locke of Abilene, Tex., 
writes from San Antonio that ever3rwhere in that State 
lies telling of bad treatment of soldiers in cantonments 
may be heard. The Government and newspapers try- 
to run these stories down, but find them always with- 
out foundation. 

(This piece of traitorous pro-German stuff has been 
answered many times.) 

LIE No. 98. A story criticising Food Administrator 
Hoover for "eating a $7 meal at a banquet" and rising 
thereafter to preach conservation and economy, is 
being circulated in St. Louis. 

{All such stories as this are based on exaggeration and 
are twisted and garbled for the purpose of creating dis- 
satisfaction. Hoover is known to be unquestionably 
sincere in his work and to practice the things he urges 
others to do.) 

LIE No. 99. More Red Cross lies are being circu- 
lated in Chillicothe, Mo., according to T. L. Kesleri 
of Bedford, who wrote to The RepubUc that he heard a 
member of the Red Cross would be subjected to re- 
peated calls for money, because the officers need more 
money all the time. He said other stories are to the 
effect that young girls are to be taken from the families 
of Red Cross members and educated as niu-ses. . Also, 
that the names of those who have not joined are being 
taken, and they are being told that they will be forced 
to join later. 

(All of these stories are pro-German lies, told for no 
other purpose than to retard Red Cross work. The Red 
Cross organization is altogether a voluntary work, and its 
chief workers here and abroad work without one cent of 
pay, and even pay their own expenses. No one is forced 
to serve or to donate. Those who do so are responding to 
the call of patriotism.) 

LIE No. 100. Walter Eason of 3915 Delmar boule- 

43 



vard, who has three boys in the army, tells The Re- 
public that a woman who has one son in the army is 
telling her neighbors, and told Eason that soldiers are 
dying by the hundreds at Jefferson Barracks, and are 
being piled into rough graves, with no burial ceremonies. 
{More Teuton ''bunk" set floating for the purpose of 
creating anxiety in the hearts of mothers whose sons are in 
the service. There is not a word of truth in any such story.) 

LIE No. 101. A story of ridiculous tests of the en- 
durance of soldiers as they enter army service is being 
scattered about the country, to the effect that ground 
red pepper is placed in their eyes by the examining 
physician to learn whether their "nerve" is good, and 
that other tests are frightful. 

(The idea of such a feature of examination is so clearly 
out of reason that such stories hardly need refuting. 
Army officials and physicians , and soldiers themselves , 
deny that there are any cruelties in any of the examinations » 
It is the effort of medical men to assist the eyesight of 
the men rather than to impair it.) 



44 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS f^ 



020 914 165 6 



/ 



/ 



